TORONTO — Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu, in southern Egypt, have uncovered a step pyramid that dates back about 4,600 years, predating the Great Pyramid of Giza by at least a few decades.

Tutankhamen was the most famous of all the Egyptian Pharaohs, but it's always been a bit of a mystery how he died. He passed at only 19, and he seemed to have pretty bad injuries at his death, but there was no record of an assassination. Thanks to Science, we now know it was probably due to a chariot accident. King Tut is best known because when his tomb was found in 1922, it was in relatively good condition compared to other, more ransacked pharaonic resting places. The sarcophagus and mummy were still there, which is always a good sign,...

The mummified body of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun burst into flames inside his sarcophagus after a botched attempt to embalm him, according to scientists in a new documentary. After his death in 1323â€‰BC, Tutankhamun was rapidly embalmed and buried, but fire investigators believe a chemical reaction caused by embalming oils used on his mummy sparked the blaze. A fragment of flesh from the boy pharaoh, whose tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon, was tested by researchers who confirmed his body was burnt while sealed in his coffin. Tut has long fired the public imagination....

More than 1,000 Egyptian artifacts have been stolen from the Mallawi museum, which was ransacked the same day police violently dispersed Islamist sit-ins in Cairo. The museum was looted and ransacked on Aug. 14, when mobs across the country attacked churches, Christian homes and shops, police stations, and government institutions after police forcefully dispersed two Islamist protest camps. The devastated museum serves as a reminder of the toll that Egypt's two and a half years of upheaval – including the most recent episode – have taken not only on Egypt's people, but also on their history.

Researchers have shown that ancient Egyptian iron beads held at the UCL Petrie Museum were hammered from pieces of meteorites, rather than iron ore. The objects, which trace their origins to outer space, also predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being rolled into tubes, the nine beads – which are over 5000 years-old - were originally strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic material in ancient times. The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science....

Curators at the U.K.’s Manchester Museum were a bit perturbed when they noticed an ancient Egyptian statue changing position over time without any employees claiming to have moved it. So, they set up a camera to capture what might be happening. What they saw was just as unnerving. When viewing the footage taken over a week in time-lapse, they saw the statue of Neb-Sanu, which is only 11 inches tall, turning around on its own.

Islamists in Mali have begun destroying remaining mausoleums in the historic city of Timbuktu, an Islamist leader and a tourism official said. “Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu,” Abou Dardar, a leader of the Islamist group Ansar Dine, told AFP news agency. Islamists in control of northern Mali began earlier this year to pull down shrines that they consider idolatrous. …

...says Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College London. Tutankhamun died young with a feminised physique, and so did his immediate predecessors. Paintings and sculptures show that Smenkhkare, an enigmatic pharaoh who may have been Tutankhamun's uncle or older brother, and Akhenaten, thought to have been the boy king's father, both had feminised figures, with unusually large breasts and wide hips. Two pharaohs that came before Akhenaten -- Amenhotep III and Tuthmosis IV -- seem to have had similar physiques. All of these kings died young and mysteriously, says Ashrafian. "There are so many...

A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery. The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts. "Most of the hands are quite large and some of them are very large," Manfred Bietak,...

French archaeologists have discovered a 5,000-year-old wooden boat in an expedition in Egypt, it has emerged. The significant discovery was made in Abu Rawash, west of Cairo, the antiquities ministry in Egypt said. Mohammed Ibrahim, the antiquities minister, said: 'It goes back to the era of Pharaoh Den, one of the First Dynasty kings'. The six-metre long and 1.5-metre wide pharaonic solar boat 'is in good condition,' he added. Its planks are now undergoing renovation before it is put on display in a museum. The pharaohs believed that solar boats, buried close to them at death, would transport them in...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Calls to Destroy Egyptâ€™s Great Pyramids BeginPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On July 10, 2012 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 20 Comments According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of EgyptÂ’s Great PyramidsÂ—or, in the words of SaudiÂ Sheikh Ali bin Said al-RabiÂ‘i, those Â“symbols of paganism,Â” which EgyptÂ’s Salafi party has long planned toÂ cover with wax.Â Â Most recently, BahrainÂ’s Â“Sheikh of Sunni SheikhsÂ” and President of National Unity,Â Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on EgyptÂ’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to Â“destroy the Pyramids...

Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests late Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, Egypt's top archaeologist told state television. The museum in central Cairo, which has the world's biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday. "I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night," Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council...

What are your most embarrassing moments? You don’t want to admit them. And if you do admit them, you certainly won’t add to your shame by inventing embarrassing moments about yourself to make you look even worse. Who’s going to lie to make himself look bad? People will lie to make themselves look good (especially politicians), but no one will lie to make himself look bad. That’s why when historical accounts contain events embarrassing to the authors (or heroes of the authors) those events are probably true. Historians call this the principle of embarrassment, and it’s one reason why I...

<p>Egyptologists from the Brooklyn Museum and doctors from North Shore University Hospital learned Tuesday through a CT scan that a 2,500-year-old mummy previously thought to be a woman - and named Lady Hor - actually was a man.</p>
<p>Dr. Jesse Chusid said that while the mummy's body wrap of linen covered in plaster, called cartonnage, bore the shape of a woman, the body within had the anatomy of a man.</p>

CAIRO – Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old temple that may have been dedicated to the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Tuesday. The ruins of the Ptolemaic-era temple were discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in the heart of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. The city was the seat of the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled over Egypt for 300 years until the suicide of Queen Cleopatra. The statement said the temple was thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled...

Two of those palaces were decorated, for a very short period of time, with Minoan frescoes. These include drawings of bull-leaping scenes -- which are well known from the Palace of Knossos in Crete. Site excavator Manfred Bietak published a book in 2007 that discussed these frescoes and compared them with the more famous scenes at the Palace of Knossos. There is no question that the frescoes at Tell el-Dab'a are Aegean influenced, and it seems likely that the artists are from Crete... Bietak said in his book that the paintings may symbolize the marriage of a Minoan princess into...

PARIS (AFP) – Ancient Egypt's stunning eye make-up not only shielded wearers from the dark deeds of the evil eye but also protected them against eye disease, French scientists said Thursday. Ancient Egyptians some 4,000 years ago produced the make-up used to darken and adorn eyes with lead and lead salts in mixtures that sometimes took a month to concoct, said Philippe Walter, who co-headed a team of scientists from the Louvre museum and the CNRS national research institute. "We knew ancient Greeks and Romans too had noted the make-up had medicinal properties, but wanted to determine exactly how," he...

Archaeologists have discovered a monumental statue of an ancient black Egyptian pharaoh of the Nubian 25th Dynasty in Dangeil, Sudan, about 350 kilometres northeast of the capital, Khartoum. The granite statue of the warrior pharaoh Taharqa weighs one ton, according to its discoverer, Dr Caroline Rocheleau of the North Carolina Museum of Art... The statues of two other Nubian pharaohs were also discovered... Taharqa was ruler of both Egypt and Nubia (Kush) during the 25th Dynasty, which was based in Nubia, which had a long history of pyramid building, apparently independent of Egypt. His reign is dated from 690 BC...

CAIRO (Reuters) – Archaeologists have unearthed the site of a pharaonic-era sacred lake in a temple to the Egyptian goddess Mut in the ruins of ancient Tanis, the Culture Ministry said on Thursday. The ministry said the lake, found 12 meters below ground at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in Egypt's eastern Nile Delta, was 15 meters long and 12 meters wide and built out of limestone blocks. It was in a good condition.

"In an unprecedented find, a group of Egyptian researchers and archeologists has discovered a cache of coins from the time of the Pharaohs. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides decisive scientific evidence disproving the claim by some historians that the ancient Egyptians were unfamiliar with coins and conducted their trade through barter. "The researchers discovered the coins when they sifted through thousands of small archeological artifacts stored in [the vaults of] the Museum of Egypt. [Initially] they took them for charms, but a thorough examination revealed that the coins bore the year in which they were minted...

Top Egyptian Daily: Joseph’s Era Coins Found in Egypt (IsraelNN.com) "...discovered many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh's court…" An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

According to a report in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, by Wajih Al-Saqqar, archeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph. Following are excerpts from the article: [1] "Koranic Verses Indicate Clearly That Coins Were Used in Egypt in the Time of Joseph" "In an unprecedented find, a group of Egyptian researchers and archeologists has discovered a cache of coins from the time of the Pharaohs. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides decisive scientific evidence disproving the claim by some historians that the ancient Egyptians were unfamiliar with coins and conducted...

Science & Society 10/20/03Digging out the truth of Exodus By Helen Fields Egyptologist Manfred Bietak was reading a 60-year-old report of a dig near Luxor in Egypt when a surprising find caught his eye. Near a mortuary temple from the 12th century B.C., archaeologists had uncovered a grid of shallow trenches, which they guessed was the base of a workers' hut. Bietak, head of the Institute of Egyptology at Vienna University, recognized the floor plan as that of the four-room houses used by almost all Israelites from the 12th to the sixth century B.C. What was it doing in Egypt?...

Is there, within the Grand Canyon, an enigmatic system of tunnels that is evidence of an ancient Egyptian voyage to America? Is it all bogus? Or is the truth most likely somewhere in between? On April 5, 1909, a front page story in the Arizona Gazette reported on an archaeological expedition in the heart of the Grand Canyon funded by the Smithsonian Institute, which had resulted in the discovery of Egyptian artefacts. April 5 is close to April 1 – but then not quite… so perhaps the story could be true? Nothing since has been heard of this discovery. Today,...

A Basenji is a dog breed indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa. Humans might have first domesticated dogs from wolves in Africa, with Egypt being one possibility, since wolves are native to that region. Modern humans originated in Africa, and now it looks like man's best friend first emerged there too. An extensive genetic study on the ancestry of African village dogs points to a Eurasian — possibly North African — origin for the domestication of dogs. Prior research concluded that dogs likely originated in East Asia. However, this latest study, the most thorough investigation ever on the ancestry of African village...

Lord Carnarvon, the man who funded the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and died five months later in mysterious circumstances before he could actually see the mummy's face, was a superstitious man who wore the same lucky bow tie all his life. > The end of the exhibition also represents the end of the story for Lord Carnarvon: on display the razor which he used in 1923. He cut a mosquito bite while shaving and the wound turned septic. He died of pneumonia brought on by blood poisoning on April 5, 1923, in the "hour of his triumph," as...

According to Robert Temple, a moat theory explains the water weathering of the Sphinx without hypothesizing that it dates back to an earlier period of more rainfall than the present. I will not address his other hypotheses, which I do not find persuasive, that the Sphinx was the jackal [wild dog] Anubis and the face seen on the Sphinx is that of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Amenemhet II, though I note the original Sphinx has been reworked and the head re-carved... Assuming the argument that the Sphinx sat in a pool, either the water level around the Sphinx was the...

The man responsible for protecting Egypt's antiquities has said he will "fight" for the return of an ancient bust of Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian queen, now housed in a Berlin museum. Zahi Hawass also requested the temporary return of other ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone which is housed in London's British museum. "Some people say, 'If we give this bust to Egypt for three months they will not return it'." Hawass said, regarding the bust of Nefertiti, in an interview on Wednesday.Zahi Hawass is seeking "unique artifacts" from at least 10 museums around the world [AP]Germany says the...

"This time I mean it very seriously," is how Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, characterized his fresh demand for the bust of Queen Nefertiti, which German archaeologists brought home in 1913... Hawass has long called on Berlin to return the bust of Nefertiti, which sits in the city's Egyptian Museum, but SPIEGEL revealed in this week's edition of the magazine that an obscure document from 1924 charged the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt with "cheating" to secure the bust for Germany... The secretary of the German Oriental Institute reported in 1924 on a 1913 meeting between Borchardt and a senior...

ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated whether she was Greek or Macedonian like her ancestor the original Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who was made...

Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen’s younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated...

Statue find 'a revelation' From correspondents in Rome August 07, 2002 A HUMAN-size statue of Baal Addir, the Phoenician god of the dead, has been found in an ancient tomb in southern Sardinia. The statue was found in a burial site used by the ancient people of Carthage, who held the southern Mediterranean island after the Punic Wars against the Romans in the third century BC. Italy's national research centre today said the discovery of the red-and-black statue pointed to the large presence of Carthaginians on the island from 510 to 238 BC. They had apparently used the statue to...

Spectacular images from within the unopened casket of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy have been revealed using a hi-tech hospital scanner. The elaborately decorated coffin contains the wrapped remains of Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC. "Experts do not want to disturb the casket, which has remained sealed Experts do not want to disturb the casket, which has remained sealed since Meresamun was laid to rest almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. But now cutting edge X-ray technology has allowed scientists to peer through the coffin and obtain...

The face of Cleopatra: Scientists recreate the first true image of the legendary beauty ...Cambridge University Egyptologist...believes the computer-generated 3D image is the best likeness of the legendary beauty... Pieced together from images on ancient artefacts, including a ring dating from Cleopatra's reign 2000 years ago, it is the culmination of more than a year of painstaking research. Likeness: The computer-generated 3D image has been pieced together from images on ancient artefacts The result is a strikingly beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity... ...reflect the monarch's Greek heritage as well as her Egyptian upbringing. ...'She probably wasn’t just completely European....

The Great Sphinx of Giza might have originally had the face of a lion and could be much older than previously thought, archaeologists have claimed. Until now its origins have been one of history's most enigmatic mysteries, but a new study suggests that the icon did not have the face of a pharaoh. The Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head, which stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, near Cairo. It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 feet long, 20 feet wide and 65...

A solid gold statue of Kate Moss entitled Siren, will be on display in a new exhibition at the British Museum, Marie Claire reports. The sculpture by artist Marc Quinn is worth Ł1.5 million, and the 50kg piece is said to be the largest gold statue created since the era of Ancient Egypt.

At first glance, the ancient Egyptian texts look like scraps of garbage. And more than 2,000 years ago, that's exactly what they were -- discarded documents, useless contracts and unwanted letters that were recycled into material needed to plaster over mummies, like some precursor to papier-mache... The texts, collectively called papyri, were donated to Stanford in the 1920s by an alumnus who bought them from an antiquities dealer in London. They've been overlooked by generations of faculty who haven't focused on papyrology, said Joe Manning, an associate professor of classics... About 70 texts in Stanford's collection of several hundred papyri...

Archaeology and the Book of Exodus: Exit From Egypt Archaeologists have made many significant discoveries that make the book of Exodus and the Israelistes' time in Egypt come alive. by Mario Seiglie In earlier issues, The Good News examined several archaeological finds that illuminate portions of the book of Genesis. In this issue we continue our exploration of discoveries that illuminate the biblical accounts, focusing on Exodus, the second book of the Bible.Exodus in English derives from the Latin and means simply "to exit." The book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, an event distinguished by...

"These coffins were found in the tombs of senior officials of the 18th and 19th dynasties," near Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday. "Some coloured unopened coffins dating back to the sixth century BC were found as well as some coffins dating back to the time of Ramses II," who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC, he said... The Saqqara burial grounds which date back to 2,700 BC and are dominated by the massive bulk of King Zoser's step pyramid -- the first ever built -- were in continuous use until the...

Coils of Ancient Egyptian Rope Found in Cave Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News June 20, 2008 -- The ancient Egyptian's secret to making the strongest of all rigging ropes lies in a tangle of cord coils in a cave at the Red Sea coast, according to preliminary study results presented at the recent congress of Egyptologists in Rhodes. Discovered three years ago by archaeologists Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, the ropes offer an unprecedented look at seafaring activities in ancient Egypt. "No ropes on this scale and this old have been...

Philadelphia - A travelling exhibition on King Tutankhamun drew about 50 protesters in Philadelphia who denounced the popular display as racist. Molefi Asante, a professor of African-American studies at Temple University, led the demonstration on Sunday outside the Franklin Institute, claiming the exhibit has no mention of Africa and that it suggests the ancient Egyptian king was white.

SAQQARA, Egypt - Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. Zahi Hawass said the pyramid — of which only the base remains — is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said. But the desert sands covered Lepsius'...

A flamboyant archeologist known worldwide for his trademark Indiana Jones hat believes he has identified the site where Cleopatra is buried. Now, with a team of 12 archeologists and 70 excavators, Zahi Hawass, 60, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has begun the search for her tomb. In addition, after a breakthrough two weeks ago, Hawass hopes to find Cleopatra's lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, sharing her last resting place at the site of a temple, the Taposiris Magna, 28 miles west of Alexandria.

The last time they had the chance to offend anyone was 2,700 years ago when they were wandering around ancient Egypt. Since then the mummies have led a blameless existence, spending the last 120 years in a museum where countless thousands of visitors have managed to see them without anyone becoming in the least bit upset. Not any longer, it appears. Complaints have led to the naked remains of Asru, a chantress at the Temple of Amun in Karnak, plus the partially-wrapped male Khary and a child mummy, all being covered in shrouds to protect their modesty. The decision, which...

Egypt: Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered Cairo, 24 April(AKI) - Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year. Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together. He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs. Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris...

Study shows life was tough for ancient Egyptians By Alaa Shahine Fri Mar 28, 10:12 AM ETReuters Photo: The Giza pyramids in a file photo. New evidence of a sick, deprived population working... CAIRO (Reuters) - New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found. Tell el-Amarna was briefly the capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in favor of the Aten sun disk...